Bulgaria’s best customers for wine exports are Poland and Australia

By Clive Leviev-Sawyer /
03/02/2017 /
Comments Off on Bulgaria’s best customers for wine exports are Poland and Australia

Bulgaria’s best customer for exports of its wine is – among EU countries – Poland, while among non-EU countries, the best customer is Australia.

This emerges from figures for 2011 to 2015, released by Bulgaria’s National Statistical Institute (NSI).

Among EU member states, Poland bought more than 70 million litres of wine from Bulgaria. Far behind, but in second place, was Romania, at about 25 million litres, followed by the Czech Republic, at about 15 million litres.

Among non-EU countries, Australia imported about 65 million litres of wine from Bulgaria. The second and third-best customers among non-EU countries were way behind that, at about two million litres each.

In turn, Bulgaria imported 14 million litres of wine from Italy, close to four million from France and about three million from Spain. From non-EU countries, it imported about 1.5 million litres from Chile, just more than 800 000 litres from New Zealand and just less than 800 000 litres from its neighbour the Republic of Macedonia.

However, wine exports have been shrinking over this period – from close to 60 million litres in 2011 to less than 40 million litres in 2015. Over the same period, imports have increased slightly.

Citing preliminary figures, the NSI said that between January and October 2016, Bulgaria exported 22.5 million litres of wine, earning about 46.1 million leva (about 23.5 million euro).

Of these exports during this period of time, just more than 20 million litres were to other EU countries.

Between January and October 2016, imports of wine into Bulgaria totalled 6.1 million litres, costing just more than 24.6 million leva. Of this, just more than five million litres came from other EU countries.

In those months of 2016, while Poland remained Bulgaria’s best customer among EU countries, among non-EU countries it was Russia – which took 1.2 million litres of Bulgarian wine. Russia was followed by China, at just less than 400 000 litres, and Japan, at just more than 200 000 litres.

From non-EU countries, Bulgaria imported more than 300 000 litres of wine from Moldova, close to 250 000 litres from New Zealand and more than 200 000 litres from Chile.

The NSI also noted that in 2015, the average price of bottled white table wine in Bulgaria was 2.28 leva and of bottled dry red wine “of high quality” 6.29 leva.

An average Bulgarian household got through 4.6 litres of wine per person in 2015. That same average household bought an average of 5.7 litres of wine at an average price of 4.03 leva, according to the NSI./IBNA